The City Council can make life easier for downtown businesses by eliminating or scaling back fees for city parking. It's clear from the feedback from business owners that something isn't working well in the parking system.

Our SayJohn McCain and Mitt Romney stand out as the top candidates. We endorse McCain.

That led the council, for about 10 minutes last week, to abolish parking assessments altogether.

Then the city manager issued a threat -- he would stop maintaining and plowing those parking spaces, as well as parking enforcement.

Quickly, two council members changed their votes, and the status quo lived on.

However, there is ample money in the parking fund for now. That means the council indeed could have eliminated parking fees while studying the issue further.

The city should be sympathetic to downtown merchants.

One business owner's assessment went up dramatically because his small coffee shop was reclassified as a restaurant.

Whether true or not, the city appears more interested in getting money than in helping small downtown businesses survive. That needs to change.

It's true that the money for maintaining parking must come from somewhere. But the city needs to balance its own financial concerns with what downtown business owners say. After all, they already pay city property taxes and income taxes.

Parking fees should produce $67,000 this year. If the city axes those fees, how will it continue to fund the parking system? Perhaps downtown business owners could help answer that question.

Let's keep in mind the big picture: The city needs more parking downtown. There are buildings on the west side of downtown that could be marketed to tenants if more parking were available.

Perhaps it is finally time to consider how to finance a parking ramp in downtown Jackson. That's a rather good problem to have, isn't it?